More on Museum Property Claims

Earlier in the week I posted an article from the NY Times on how some museums were possibly tracking their feet on returning Nazi looted art (click HERE to read earlier related post).  The NY Times published a follow up article that is a bit more sympathetic to museums and shows some of the difficulty they have in dealing with and investigating claims.

The NY Times reports

The stickiest question is what constitutes proof positive that a holding violates the intent or spirit of laws and rules adopted since 1970 to help stem the trade and acquisition of illicit artifacts. For example, in 2008, the Association of Art Museum Directors, the industry’s major trade group, wrote sweeping guidelines advising museums that they “normally should not” acquire a work unless solid proof exists that the object was, before 1970, outside the country where it was discovered in modern times, or was legally exported from that country after 1970.

But there is a wide latitude in what constitutes solid proof or how to interpret phrases like “normally should not,” according to experts like Ricardo A. St. Hilaire, a cultural heritage lawyer. He said the lack of “a clear evidentiary or procedural standard that universally guides provenance investigations at museums” contributes to uneven decision making among institutions.

In one case last September, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology agreed to a Turkish request to return 24 gold pieces. They were sent back on indefinite loan. Among the evidence the museum relied on was a speck of soil lodged in a pendant that matched a site known to have been illegally excavated.

The museum had acquired the items in 1966, which is in accord with the museum association guidelines, but the return was also based on other factors, including assurances that the university can continue excavations in Turkey and hold an exhibition of new artifacts dug up from royal tombs.

Source: The NY Times